New image cropping options for the image collages in Designer Emails (+ 23 other updates!)

Your experience matters to us, and we’re committed to ongoing improvement and striving to make Sprout better for you.

For 541 weeks (and counting), we’ve been dedicated to supporting photographers and providing the best all-in-one business tool for your needs. With each update, Sprout continues to evolve and enhance your workflow.

This week, you can enjoy 23 updates. They are:

• You now have new crop options for the image collage layout in Designer Emails, including square, horizontal, vertical, and no crop.
• You can now duplicate expenses, which is excellent for recurring or frequent expenses.
• When using the Designer Email template chooser, you will see a tag for the settings group for your Designer Email templates, making it easier to find what you need.
• Questionnaire responses now display the newest responses at the top when viewed in the backend.
• Added a new [[due_date]] variable to Sprout Assistant reminders to display the actual due date of an invoice instead of the due date offset.
• Expanding or collapsing groups in settings no longer triggers a confirmation in the bottom right corner.
• The font colour for image file names in backend Galleries has been changed from grey to black to improve readability.
• Tweaked and adjusted the titling and styling in the top-right corner of invoices; it now also shows the Shoot name and date where applicable.
• Added a “Create Template” button when creating a Designer Email to convert a standalone email to a template.
• Added a better indication and visible warning when building a Booking Page if no scheduler is attached for the shoot date.
• Fixed a bug where you couldn’t open the description for a line item in an Order without refreshing.
• Now, when you add an instruction field within a Questionnaire, the editor will immediately open.
• Added a restriction so you can’t delete a shoot workflow if it’s in use by another workflow, preventing issues down the line.
• The add mileage button on the “empty” mileage list page now works correctly.
• The “Attach To” section of the date popup is more consistent and optionally displays contacts for the lead or shoot if applicable.
• Added a warning if clients try to purchase the same digital file twice.
• Fixed an issue where the client name variable wasn’t getting populated in designer emails built in a shoot or lead.
• Added a fallback label on the email list page if an email was sent to a Contact that has since been deleted.
• Fixed a bug that occurred when opening a date modal that was marked as waiting and clicking update without approving it.
• Corrected a typo in the SMTP email health check that added the wrong email address to the email contents. These emails go out once/a month as a part of “Sprout Now” to help improve email delivery and catch email issues before they happen for users.
• Fixed a styling issue that caused problems on older Apple devices when viewing a Scheduler; sometimes, it would miss the background colour on the “load more dates” button at the bottom.
• Cleaned up the “outbound email” section of the profile popup and fixed an issue that would label the wrong email as the “default” email when you first changed it, before closing the popup.
• Enabled an auto-archive email functionality that archives emails older than six months, improving list page speed by not showing older emails by default. Your older emails can still be seen by clicking the “Archived” flag in the top right corner of the email list page.

This week, you’ll also enjoy our spotlight of the week

Image Cropping for Designer Emails.

You take great pride in how your images are displayed. When you shoot vertically, it’s intentional. However, sometimes, you prefer your photos to be horizontal or square.

That’s why we added a new Image Cropping setting for the Image Collage section in Designer Emails. Now, you can choose square, vertical, or horizontal to ensure all images in a collage follow that orientation.

Alternatively, select the no crop option to keep your images as you uploaded them.

To use the Image Collage section with the new settings:

1. Go to Settings > Communication > Designer Email Templates.
2. Click New Template to create a new template.
3. Click Add Section to add a new section.
4. Choose the Image Collage section type.
5. You'll find the new Image Cropping toggles under the Style tab on the left-hand side.

Chris, a product team member who worked on this feature, shared, “As a creative myself, I understand the importance of having control over how your work is presented. Photographers are picky about their craft, so this feature allows them to show off their work exactly as they want!”